The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1887-10-20
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It is . very curious thing that while
business 10 treading in and upon the
most exclusive parts of New York city,
laying waste Fifth avenue and setting
itself up beside the millish.dollar man.
sions Of ten hundred .millionaires, It is
all running in the direction Of little
shops, instead of concentrating itself-in q
few colossal stores, as the modern ten.
dency is in other cities.
It is true that Sixth avenue has some
business houses that spread over good
deal Of ground, but they are trivial,
after all, compared with Wanamaker's
in Philadelphia, with Whitely's In Lon
don, and even with new establishment
lately opened in Brooklyn, which pos
sesses open galleries and arcades stored
with tempting wares, among which q
lady can roam for whole day feasting
her eyes, without injury to her purse, II
she SO pleases.
It is a remarkable fact that since
Stewards" we have in New York no
great "store." We have many good ones,
many that would be considered great in
smaller cities, many devoted to special
ties that have been known for q genera
ton to an exclusive clientele. But we
have no great, many-sided business
house which has enlarged its borders
with the growth of the metropolis, which
takes in and supplies every human need,
and is at once bazar, show-place and un-
failing storehouse for the stranger and
the shopper.
The great store requires the man. Since
A. T. Stewart died we have not the man.
He was ahead Of his time. He organ
lied retail business upon new princi-
pies; he established fixed prices, and he
catered with equal industry to the wife
Of the mechanic and the wife OF
the millionaire. On the Fourth.av.
enue side Of his great marble pal
ace were serviceable materials, made by
his own looms, in his own factories, at q
price within the reach of every one; in
the reception -room," walled with glass,
on an upper floor, the finest evening
were constantly on exhibition, by gas
evening, so that ladies could judge, and
choose, and see, and talk about what
they saw, which was one great secret Of
his success.
These methods have been followed by
the great houses all over the country and
have built them up. Mr.. Stewart was the
subject of unlimited abuse for "swallow-
ing up" the small tradesmen, for selling
their wares, perfumes, soaps and mi.
nor articles lower than they could
afford to do, and for reducing in the
same way the cost of millinery and made.
up costumes. But now this concentra.
tion of business in few hands ia
becoming universal-it Is development
progress, the following of q law, and Il
good for the purchaser and not bad for
the seller, for the small merchants who
grubbed along and we're always in diff.
culties are now the salesmen on assured
salaries, and the superintendent of de.
partments, and even the buyers and con
trollers of special lines and sections fol
which they have displayed genius.
This subdivision of responsibility ID
one Of the features of the extensive and
many-sided business organizations, and
in some instances the "store," with iti
fifty different and specialized interests, ID
real clearinghouse, in which jobberf
deposit their unused stock, or that which
Is finer and better suited to city trade
and the nominal owner is only figure
head or general superintendent Of the
whole. Two of the largest and most fa
nous Of the china and pottery depart.
ments Of two large houses in two cities
are controlled by one man, who supplies
and manages both, merely paying q
rental.
The old conservative methods of doine
business no longer hold with the masses
they only succeed to limited extent In
specialized ways with the conservative
few. The majority want sensations